Meet the Faces of Cuba’s Private Sector

Since that time, the two bickering nations became deeply involved in betraying the very ideologies they so violently protect. In the U.S., there is a long trail of blood behind the failed brutal dictators propped up with U.S. cash and military hardware. In Cuba, there is a vein of gold accumulated by a small number of capitalists and, more recently, a policy of economic development centered on attracted the world’s affluent, capitalist travelers and industrialists.

Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications for US President Barack Obama, commented in an interview with Vice Media about his experience crafting the new relationship with Cuba: “For what ever reason, it’s easier to bomb another country than it is to engage another country.”

Obama’s detente, something akin to annulling a divorce, has just gotten started, and, like in a traditional divorce setting, the parents’ bickering serves only to harm the children.

Meet some of the “children” caught up in the current rant.

Yurixa is a mother of two and masseuse taking advantage of the surge in Cuba’s tourism sector. Image by Cuba Journal

Yrixa cares little about ideology but has found a new hope for her family through the financial independence she earns by being a private masseuse.

Rodolfo set up his bar in the parking lot and serves the tour groups visiting the Hemingway museum. The ingredients are simple, like all of the cocktails Hemingway loved: a few slices of lime; a wedge of pineapple; freshly-pressed guarapo (the kind of fresh where you’re there when they press the sugar cane) and Cuba’s most famous exported rum, Havana Club 7 Anos.

Inspired by her father’s belief in her inner strength, Roxana turned her civil engineering studies and a passion for silversmithing into a thriving business employing more than 30 people with a growing international presence